Merging honey pot ants colonies
My new Myrmecocystus placodops queen unfortunately arrived dead, but 15 of her workers survived. Since I already have a starting colony of the same species in an Antopia honeypot nest, I decided to try merging them instead of letting the workers and brood die without a purpose. I placed the brood near the nest entrance and the workers took them to the queen test tube right away. Then, I connected the new workers' tube to the main nest using a fine mesh film separator. This allowed them to share pheromones and scents without being able to attack each other. I left them to acclimate like this for 10 days. A couple of days ago, I began introducing the workers one by one over the course of a single day. Both groups immediately began exchanging food without any aggression. Fast forward to today, and I already have two new repletes developing. Just wanted to share this win in case anyone else ends up with a dead queen and surviving workers.